


I'm Left Blind (And I Don't Know What To Do)

by adamhochberg



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Slight Cussing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-29 00:43:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3876007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adamhochberg/pseuds/adamhochberg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Ultron's attack at Avengers Tower, one of their own is found dead. Tony Stark is the only one to bear the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Left Blind (And I Don't Know What To Do)

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Age of Ultron, so don't read this if you haven't seen it yet (^-^)
> 
> Written because I'm currently going through some conflicted emotions about the loss of Jarvis in AoU (ex. extreme pain, crying, sobbing without end, obsessively rewatching the IM movies for every single Jarvis scene that exists, etc.)
> 
> Inspired by this wonderful piece of art by mittiepaul on tumblr - http://mittiepaul.tumblr.com/post/117907453892/haha-wow-i-didnt-go-to-that-movie-expecting-to-be

When Tony first pulls up the hologram of Jarvis' programming after the Tower's been rampaged by Ultron, it feels like part of his heart's been ripped out. There are scattered and torn pieces of code everywhere. Jarvis - or at least, what's left of Jarvis - looks worse than the time Tony tried to reprogram him while he was drunk, and Tony thought that was bad. The warm orange hue of Jarvis' leftover coding glows pitifully, a stark contrast from what it used to be - a comforting, quiet light, a luminescence other than his arc reactor that he always knew was there. Jarvis was supposed to be stable and constant, an artificial intelligence program that would stay with Tony - till death? past that? He didn't even know.

"J? Jarvis? You there, buddy?" Tony tries, voice cracking, and his heart sinks even as he's speaking the words. There's no chance Jarvis is still there. Tony has a master's degree in engineering; he knows when a program is done for. Still, he finds himself hoping in the cold silence that follows.

Nothing.

All of his efforts, the sleepless nights he's spent up as a teenager and as an adult trying to improve Jarvis' code, every single conversation he's had with the A.I. - they were all worth nothing. Jarvis is gone, and Tony should not be this broken up over losing his A.I.; he's built failures before (like himself), been through robots that burst into flames and suits that exploded a minute after they were activated. Tony hadn't blinked an eye at those. He knows what defeat is like - Jarvis is just another one of his inventions that've now been ruined, like everything else.

This shouldn't hurt.

Except, it does.

\---

Hours after Ultron's left, the Avengers assemble inside Bruce's lab.

"There was no one close to Ultron when he woke up," Steve says, and that alone is enough to make Tony want to burst into hysterical laughter because there really should have no one near Ultron when he woke up. At the most, it should have been Tony himself, who's the sole reason Jarvis is gone and everything else is fucked up now.

"There was," he says, wanting to get it over with, and opens up the hologram that startled him so much earlier. The coding is just as ripped as before. It looks somewhat like strips of orange cloth, something that used to be part of a fabric masterpiece but was shredded and torn down.

"Jarvis." Bruce breathes, short and unbelieving.

"He was our first defense," Tony says, and zones out for a moment, leaving his team to discuss Jarvis.

He feels overwhelming guilt, a feeling that bursts over him like an tsunami's wave. It overtakes him and crushes him in its grasp. Why, his mind says, why did you let Jarvis become destroyed? Why did you let him fall? To defend you, of all people?

Showing the Avengers the remainder of Jarvis' code feels like a betrayal somehow, as if it's something that needs to be kept private. Tony's never shown anyone that wasn't Bruce even a single bit of Jarvis' code before, (not even Pepper or Rhodey), and even when Bruce saw Jarvis, it was just a basic outline of the infinitely more complicated programming that made up Jarvis. It makes him a mess to have anyone look at Jarvis. Jarvis is his, not theirs. But he knows it's necessary so that they understand exactly what happened and to come up with a battle plan. The rest of the world is more important than Tony Stark's feelings.

The entire time the Avengers are talking, Tony is on edge, stiff and unbalanced. He wants to go down to his workshop and work on the Mark 45 armor or just sit and watch Dummy and Butterfingers and You make a mess of the lab and really, he'd rather be anywhere than here, where he's watching Bruce and Steve and Thor argue over what'll happen next with a broken Jarvis next to them.

"If you hadn't meddled with things out of your reach, none of this would have happened," Thor complains, clearly talking to Tony. He's suddenly on defense now, having to become a shield for the reasons he created Ultron and kept it a secret from the Avengers. It's an unfair attack, but Tony finds it a relief, to be able to hide away from the reality of a life with no Jarvis.

When they're done talking and Steve has come up with a plan, because after all, the man is Captain America, Tony watches the rest of the team leave the lab and immediately goes back to staring at the code. He knows that he should probably be trying to fix it, attempting to rebuild what's been broken beyond belief, but the small, rational part at the back of his subconscious tells him that it's not worth it. Trying to fix Jarvis will only leave him with more scars. Plus, Tony thinks, he's already done enough wreckage today, seeing as that's what Thor and Steve and Clint and Natasha and all of them were arguing.

It's him against the rest of them now.

Tony Stark against the Avengers.

Tony Stark without Jarvis.

\---

Bruce is the one that approaches him after they've all cooled down from the fight. Tony is leaning against one of the glass tables (that he had Jarvis order and place in the lab) at the back of the room, and Bruce walks towards him slowly but with intent, so Tony can hear him coming towards him.

"Tony?" Bruce is cautious, as if he's approaching something broken and shattered. That's not too far from the truth, though, Tony muses, because Jarvis was a part of him and now he's gone.

"I'm fine, Bruce," he manages, and drops his head back to clunk against the side of the table.

"Tony, you don't look fine," Bruce responds, dropping to his knees when he reaches Tony. He knows he looks horrible right now - he hasn't brushed his hair once since he told the rest of the Avengers that Jarvis was gone, and sleep wasn't an option since he found Jarvis broken last night.

He's thankful that at least Bruce seems to care, seems to understand at least a bit of how he feels. Bruce himself never built an artificial intelligence, even with Ultron it was mainly Tony with a bit of scientific input from Bruce every now and then, but he must get it - the feeling of watching one of your greatest creations - no, the greatest creation - being burned to the ground. They're both scientists. Bruce is bound to have come up on something like this; after all, no experiment is perfect.

(Tony used to think Jarvis was. Until now).

Bruce leaves after a few minutes of silence, leaving Tony with a boiling cup of coffee (that has to have been made by Steve because no one else makes coffee that smells that bitter) and an empty lab.

"Come down when you're ready," he calls as he walks out the door, "Steve said he wanted to talk to you."

It's silent when the door closes. The sun is setting on the horizon, and Tony realizes that it's nearly been an entire day since he found Jarvis. Suddenly he feels a need to talk to anyone, anyone at all that will listen, because the last thing he needs now is to keep this bottled up inside of him. Jarvis needs to be remembered, his memory spread across the entire world and farther. Jarvis deserved to be renown throughout all the universes.

Pepper is still up. She must be. The west coast is only a few hours behind the east, but Pepper never goes to sleep before eleven on a weekday. Since Rhodey is probably unavailable, Tony wants - no, needs - to talk to her.

"Jarvis, can you call-" Tony begins, and then bites the inside of his cheek. It hurts, but it's still less painful than the reminders that are everywhere now. He remembers, and falls silent.

Pepper can wait.

Everyone else can wait.

What's the point, if there is no more Jarvis?

\---

Tony wakes up the next morning wrapped in blankets in his own bed, so it had to be Steve that found him in the lab and brought him here.

He gets out of the bed, not bothering to change, and finds something as he's walking out the door.

Scribbled handwriting on a post it note reads:

 _Tony,_  
_I'm sorry about Jarvis._  
_\- Steve_

 _P.S. I know this sounds cliché, but I'm always here if you want to talk._  
_All of us are._

That's what's stuck on the outside of the door to Tony's room, and reading it makes his heart tighten in his chest and his breathing tougher to get over.

Bruce must have told Steve about how Tony was last night. Only he would do such a thing, really, to tell the good Captain about how one of their team members was feeling down about losing his A.I. It's pitiful, and Tony sees it clearly. How he's still stuck wallowing through the remnants of losing Jarvis, and he hates how it feels. All he wants is to get over this and put it behind him, but he can't.

This is Jarvis.

This is Jarvis, and Jarvis is too important to let go of.

That's what Tony tries to convince himself of during the entirety of breakfast.

Tony can tell that Steve doesn't really get it, how hard losing Jarvis hit Tony, but at least the Captain is trying. It's more than what Clint and Natasha and Hill and Helen Cho are doing, really. At this point Tony thinks reminiscing about Jarvis is better than ignoring it completely.

Tony's gotten better at it, the feeling of no A.I. in the Tower at all times. Sure, he's stopped himself in the middle of a sentence addressing Jarvis more times than he can count in the past day, but at least the time between the beginning of the sentence and when he stops is slowly dropping.

It's disconcerting, to say the least, to walk into his workshop and not hear the usual "Hello, Sir," or "Good afternoon, Sir" supplemented by the sassy Jarvis remark of the day. Tony hadn't realized how dependent he'd gotten on his A.I. to simply be there as someone to comment about the new designs for Clint's bow to or to ask about when R&D wants the new designs by.

He misses Jarvis more than he thought he would.

It still hurts like hell.

\---

Jarvis is back.

Tony doesn't believe it at first, the fact that his A.I. had hidden within the depths of the Internet and survived Ultron's attack, especially after what had been left in Jarvis' coding, but it's real and it's not a dream and Tony is happy for the first time in what feels like forever.

Jarvis is back.

He has to keep reminding himself of it, after days of not talking to Jarvis in the workshop or in the kitchen or in the gym or anywhere and everywhere.

Jarvis is back.

His first conversation with his A.I. when he realizes Jarvis is still up and running and alive (even though he technically doesn't have a body) starts with confusion and ends with the feeling of safety, of having a home again.

"Showed up a little late to the party, didn't you, J?" Tony says when he gets the notification that systems are back online. He holds his breath and waits for the reply, daring to hope -

"I suppose so, Sir," Jarvis replies, and Tony nearly collapses then and there because it really is Jarvis, the one Tony thought he'd lost forever.

"J, god, goddamnit, thank fucking god you're still oh my god, J, you scared me so bad, buddy, thank god you're still here, Jarvis, buddy, where the hell would I be without you?" Tony babbles on mindlessly and Jarvis is saying something but Tony doesn't really fucking care except for the fact that Jarvis is actually talking there in his workshop and suddenly life doesn't look as bad as it seems.

\---

When Thor brings Mjolnir down onto the regenerative case that holds Ultron's new body and all of Jarvis' coding, Tony feels his heart stop and hold still. He wants to step forward, rush to check what's happened, but his feet are glued to the ground and he can't seem to move at all. His eyes track the opening of the case and strain to see what's come out of the cascade of steam that rises. There's a figure standing in the mist, and for a moment Tony's breath falters. He doesn't know whether he wants Jarvis to have won or lost; whether he wishes Jarvis now had a form or stayed just a program.

The haze clears, and Tony and the rest of the team are left staring at the person-looking thing that's standing in the middle of Bruce's lab.

"What are you?" Bruce asks, and Tony knows that Bruce is the only person that knows exactly how much Tony's sanity is depending on the thing's response.

"I am not Ultron," it says, and when it speaks and sounds just like Jarvis, Tony lets himself breathe a sigh of relief. He's done it, he and Bruce have done it, and Jarvis is still there with them. But it continues talking and Tony wants to block out every word that it's saying because no, no no they've done it they did it they did please let it be Jarvis please let Jarvis be there please please pleasepleaseplease -

"I am not Jarvis, either."

And there's the big nope, the one thing Tony wants to erase from his mind forever. Because it's happening again - he's been given false hope and lead to believe that yes, maybe there was a chance that Jarvis would stay with him, not leave him behind - but it was all fake, just a trick. There is no more Jarvis, and Tony knows it's impossible to bring him back now.

"I am...I am." The thing says, and even though Tony knows the thing is their last chance against Ultron and the one turning point the Avengers will get, he hates it with all of his heart. He hates it more than he's ever loathed anything before, with an animosity he didn't know he could reach. He hates it and he hates the world and he hates himself the most, hates himself for creating Ultron and getting them in this mess in the first place because if he didn't there would still be Jarvis. There would still be a Jarvis to wake him up and scold him for not eating and be there to talk to about the most mindless things and remind him about the most recent meeting Tony's missed and confirm the new designs they were supposed to finish for the Mark 46 -

Steve is saying something to the entire team now, and Tony is listening, sure, but most of his mind is concentrated on the thing's voice, how it's the exact voice that Tony programmed to Jarvis two-no, three decades ago, when he was lonely and looking for anyone other than his robots to talk to. He grips the table behind him hard, and wishes desperately for the day to start over.

Now the Avengers have got this bright red weird person thing to deal with.

And Jarvis is gone again.

\---

"Suit up, Avengers."

Tony knows that one of the main parts of the Iron Man suit is the artificial intelligence part of it. The part that contains sensors and word recognition and can actually talk back to Tony. The part that gets the Avengers past whichever enemy they happen to be facing's headquarters; the part that allows Tony to tell Clint exactly which sewer gate will lead directly into the middle of the castle they're attacking; the part that lets Tony give Cap directions while the shield is smashing through enemy lines.

It's important, to say the least.

And of course Tony's made backups. What engineer doesn't? Backups are important - lose a project and don't have a backup? You're done for.

But he's never had to resort to them before.

It feels like treachery of the worst degree, worse than it did when he was showing Jarvis' coding to the Avengers. He pulls out the dusty case from the back of the 'shit I never use' drawer that holds every single one of his backup A.I.'s, enters the code, opens it, and pulls a card out at random.

Friday is different than what Jarvis what. Her voice is strange when Tony hears it within the confines of his suit, something that he's not used to and doesn't know if he'll ever be.

"Good evening, Sir," she says when Tony opens up her program. It chills him to the bone, the fact that how she talks and how Jarvis talked are exactly the same. Or at least as close as they'll get. But that's the purpose of backups - to replace the original when the original is dead or unused or broken -

Tony doesn't like that word anymore, broken. It reminds him too much of the way Jarvis' code was the first time he saw it, cracked open and fragmented in ways he didn't think were possible.

Tony has to endure the entire fight with a fake Jarvis that has a fake Jarvis voice and work alongside another fake Jarvis that admits that its not Jarvis but sounds just like him.

It's one of the worst experiences of his life.

\---

Ultron is dead.

They've won, somehow, defeating the odds once again. Tony's still surprised whenever the team is able to fight together because they're not a group you'd expect them to be, really: a man out of time, the merchant of death, a scientist with extreme anger issues, a Norse god, an ex-KGB spy, an archer, and now, the girl that can move things and the thing, which has apparently named itself the Vision.

Tony still doesn't like talking to it or working with it. He supposes he should use it's name now, but he's afraid of how it'll reply. He doesn't want to hear Jarvis' voice ever again unless it's in the programming of a fully functional A.I. who's running Avengers Tower.

Life has changed now. It's different. At first Tony thought it'd changed for the worse - and maybe that's true. But it doesn't seem so bad now.

Tony didn't put Friday in charge of the entire Tower like Jarvis had been. He lets her in the communal area and the kitchen and the gym and the pool and every other area in the Tower the Avengers use together. He adjusts to life alone in his workshop and in his room, where he still tries to fix Jarvis' code every once in a while.

It's different.

But it'll do for now.

**Author's Note:**

> RIP to the greatest A.I. the world will ever know (J.A.R.V.I.S.)


End file.
